Who's Minding Your Food?

The typical American household spends an average of $2,030 on food away from home each year. Coincidently last year in the United States, the National Center for Disease Control reported 76 million illnesses, 325,000 hospitalizations and 5,000 deaths related to food-borne illnesses.

These figures conjure nightmares for food service establishments who worry about the hazards of food-borne illness, especially for food served to older people, young children or individuals with compromised immune systems.

Colorado State University Extension has met the challenge of improving food safety practices through ServSafe^TM, a food safety certification program developed by the National Restaurant Association. Extension first introduced ServSafe^TM in Colorado in1998 with three, train-the-trainer workshops for Extension agents, environmental health specialists and retail food industry personnel, taught by Pat Kendall and Melissa Bardsley, Extension food science and nutrition specialists. The workshops were funded through a grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Food Safety and Quality Initiative. The ServSafe certification program consists of a seven-hour course for food service managers and a four-hour training for food handlers. Each participating manager must pass the course with a score of 75 percent or better to be certified.

ServSafe training teams are typically responsible for a class of 30 food handlers, who in turn can be responsible for serving or preparing as many as 7,000 to 10,000 meals per day. The potential health impact of this program alone reinforces the need not only for certified food handlers but also for qualified ServSafe instructors.

By the end of 2000, Extension established eight training teams who serve Northeast Colorado (Kit Carson, Logan, Morgan, Phillips, Sedgwick, Washington and Yuma counties), as well as Delta, Denver, Eagle, El Paso, Gunnison, Huerfano, Las Animas, Mesa, Montrose, Pueblo, Rio Blanco, Routt and Summit counties. In three years, these teams trained 1,157 restaurant managers or owners, and thousands of food handlers from nursing homes, grocery stores, jails and prisons, catering businesses, Elks lodges, senior meal sites, and even 4-H leaders who work concession stands at county fairs.

The multi-agency-team approach to ServSafe not only helps organizations with limited resources train large numbers of food handlers, but also fosters partnerships between local health departments and businesses.

Carmen Vandenbark, environmental health representative for the Northeast Colorado Health Department was certified in ServSafe in 1998 and teaches on a team with Extension family and consumer science agents Joy Akey, Luann Boyer and Colleen Simon, and other health department employees.

"ServSafe has been good for the food service establishments in our area because it's easier for us to provide the education locally--we can protect the public health," said Vandenbark. "The team approach works well for us. Extension brings education about food safety to the training and our department presents the regulation side of food safety.

"This is the first time I'd ever worked with Extension on a project and I can't say enough good about it or our teaching team," Vandenbark said.

The Northeast Colorado teaching team also trains cooks and assistant cooks responsible for 11 senior meal sites in the seven-county area.

"We prepare 450 meals a day in our kitchen and require that all of our cooks and assistant cooks take this training," said Sherry Jones, nutrition director for the Northeast Area Agency on Aging. "Since we serve one of the highest risk populations in the United States, we have to make sure that the meals we serve are sanitary and that the procedures and temperatures we use keep food safe."

Many states currently require all food service establishments to participate in some kind of food safety certification program. Although Colorado does not require food safety certification, its retail food industry faces the same challenges as other states. Rapid employee turnover, employees switching from one food establishment to another, language and literacy barriers make it increasingly obvious that food service establishments must find a universal method to train employees in safe food practices.

McDonalds is one corporate chain that requires all managers and food handlers to pass ServSafe certification within the first 30 days of employment. In Northeast Colorado, McDonald's food handlers are sent to ServSafe classes presented by Extension agents and agency partners. Rob Whitney, store manager for McDonalds in Brush became a certified ServSafe trainer and noted that ServSafe's training emphasizes proper holding temperatures and personal hygiene, two of the most commonly reported violations in food preparation practices.

"Hand washing is required of every employee," said Whitney. "A timer goes off every hour and employees are required to wash their hands and initial their names on a clip board. We also check all food for proper temperatures with a pyrometer and are required to take temperatures of all the meat patties on the grill before we sell any product."

What kind of impact does proper food handling have on the health of Coloradans? In one year, hospitalizations in Colorado due to food-borne illnesses were estimated to cost more than $43 million. Colorado State University Extension has done the math and is working hard to position the food industry as a safer place to eat and work.
--Debby Weitzel

Food safety risk factors identified by the Center for Disease Control:

1. Poor personal hygiene*
2. Improper holding temperatures*
3. Inadequate cooking
4. Contaminated equipment
5. Food from an unsafe source

For more information, contact your local Colorado State University Extension office.

Go to top of this page.

Uploaded Tuesday, September 25, 2007

© Colorado State University Extension. 1995-2004. Contact Extension Web Manager. Home Page: www.ext.colostate.edu. Issued in furtherance of Extension work, Acts of May 8 and June 30, 1914, in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Milan A. Rewerts, Director of Extension, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado. Extension programs are available to all without discrimination. No endorsement of products mentioned is intended nor is criticism implied of products not mentioned.